As a career health administrator,
James Thiedeman
has never sold insurance or pies at sporting stadiums, but it’s a fair bet he watched the floats of Genworth Mortgage Insurance Australia and Spotless Group closely this week.

As investor appetite for new stocks shows little sign of subsiding, all eyes are on
Monash IVF
, the fertility business run by Thiedeman. It is expected to float with a market value of about $500 million before the end of June.

Thiedeman joined the business five years ago, wanting to build an innovative healthcare business with the backing of private equity and doctor owners, in a “growing industry which had a bright outlook in terms of technology".

He remains tight-lipped on a potential initial public offering. However, following the successful float of market leader
Virtus Health
in June 2013, it is unlikely Monash’s majority owner
Ironbridge Capital
would turn its back on the exit route from here. But for Thiedeman, float or not, Monash’s future is all about technology and Asia.

“The reason Asia is exciting is there’s a burgeoning middle class with growing discretionary income who, like us, have aspirations to access high-quality healthcare close to home, rather than needing to travel to Australia or Singapore or the United States," he says in the boardroom of the company’s head office in Richmond, Melbourne.

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Ironbridge first moved into in-vitro fertilisation with the purchase of South Australian practice Repromed in 2008. It bought a stake in Monash IVF in 2009 from ABN AMRO, which had bought 53 per cent from Monash University in 2007. Unlike Virtus Health, which is yet to set up outside Australia, Ironbridge has pressed ahead into Asia. The company bought Malaysian outfit KL Fertility in 2012 and has a co-operative deal with a Shanghai hospital.

To illustrate the Asian opportunity, Thiedeman says across the assisted reproductive industry in Australia there are about 43,000 fresh IVF cycles a year. A cycle refers to the complete process from collecting eggs to implantation of an embryo in the uterus in the hope of pregnancy. In Malaysia, which has a greater ­population, there are only about 4000 cycles a year at the moment. “There’s a wealth factor there obviously but we see there’s significant opportunity for volume uptick," he says.

Local growth lies in tech innovation

Market sources say the company has revenue of just over $100 million. Along with Virtus, which has a market value of $635 million and is expected to hit $200 million in revenue this year, the two companies make up about 50 per cent of the Australian market.

Thiedeman was drawn into Monash IVF by Healthscope chief executive
Robert Cooke
, who is mulling a potential $4 billion-plus float of his own.

In 2009, Cooke was chairman of Monash when he persuaded Thiedeman to leave his role running a private hospital in Noosa, Queensland for Ramsay Health Care. It was not the first time Cooke had played a hand in Thiedeman’s career progression.

Thiedeman was running negotiations with insurers in the private hospital unit of Mayne Nickless. Cooke led a management buyout of that business and created Affinity Health. He then sent Thiedeman back to the hospital coalface, telling him he was “too much of a bloody corporate lizard and you need to go out and learn a bit about ­hospitals". Thiedeman stayed on after Ramsay bought out Affinity in 2005.

About one in every 33 babies are born with the assistance of IVF in Australia. As women and their families put off having children until later in life, a demographic trend underpinned by rising female workforce participation rates and a desire for more women in senior leadership positions, this statistic shows no sign of falling. However, Thiedeman says volume growth in Australia will be incremental because potential acquisitions are relatively small. Monash IVF’s large clinics undertake about 2000 cycles each year, compared to between 200 and 500 for independent clinics.

But new technology that allows for screening and genetic testing of embryos to remove those with abnormalities or genes related to certain diseases offers potential for revenue growth. “If we can give patients that information – give them the assurance that the embryo we’re transferring is robust, is genetically sound – why wouldn’t they actually take up this diagnostic technology?" Thiedeman says.